e-Innovation Centre tenants – Buildfifty5 Anticipate Major Growth

BuildFifty5 Living, part of the well-established project management and construction development company BuildFifty5 Ltd, launched in early 2019 to focus on the redevelopment and improvement of the affordable homes, older persons, and assisted living markets.

“Over the last 17 years we have amassed a wealth of experience working with private and institutional developers and funds. During lockdown, we spent time refining our approach and preparing the ground for what we anticipate being major growth during the next few years,” said Kieran Danby, co-owner of Buildfifty5 Living.

With its team operating from the E-Innovation Centre, BuildFifty5 Living works closely with affordable older persons accommodation, housing and assisted living registered providers to deliver bespoke and affordable homes, which in turn will help to regenerate high streets and communities.

Up to and during lockdown BuildFifty5 Living facilitated a £2.7 million scheme for Citizen Housing (a housing association group that owns and manages 30,000 homes across the West Midlands) for the construction of 24-homes on the site of a former pub in Smethwick. Kieran Danby, co-owner of Buildfifty5 Living, said: “The redevelopment of the Thimblemill Pub site demonstrated how we identify opportunities that benefit from the fresh approach to design, procurement and collaboration we bring. Many companies had overlooked the brownfield site, however, we recognised the opportunity to galvanise a team that successfully overcame the challenges involved and delivered a fully affordable scheme.”

Mr Danby added: “Set against the background of ever-increasing house prices, living costs and pressure on appropriate public services, demand for affordable, supported and specialist housing has never been greater, particularly in the West Midlands and Shropshire.

He adds: “Our approach dares to be different. Our site acquisition strategy is enabling us to be one step ahead of the game. So much so, that we are now helping to re-develop sites within Telford Borough, our own county of Shropshire and much further afield across the UK.

Runners Up in the UK IT Industry Awards 2022

nFocus Testing, the longest established UK-owned testing services provider, are today delighted to announce they were runners up in Services Company of the Year category at the prestigious UK IT Industry Awards.

The UK IT Industry Awards are the UK’s largest and most respected IT industry awards. Presented by the BCS and Computing, the awards are a benchmark for outstanding performance throughout the UK computing industry.

Read more on this here

New recruit Omar joins the CQS Solutions team

A first-class honours graduate is the latest recruit to Midlands quantity surveying company CQS Solutions.

Omar Miah, 21, from Newtown in Powys joined the company in September as an assistant quantity surveyor after graduating from Coventry University with a first-class honours degree in quantity surveying and commercial management.

Omar will join the eight-person team at the company which works with building contractors and subcontractors across the Midlands and is based at the University of Wolverhampton’s Telford Innovation Campus.

He said that after graduating he wanted to work with a growing company to get a wide experience in different projects and the invaluable support of a small team of experts.

Omar is also accredited in the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method which means he is qualified to help contractors and companies find the most sustainable way of running a project and procuring materials.

“It’s an area of the business that really interests me and I hope there may be openings to put my BREEAM qualification to good use within CQS Solutions sometime in the future,” said Omar.

He is also planning to work towards his RICS chartered quantity surveyor status with company owner, Tim Lloyd.

“I’ve already got involved in a wide range of different projects with CQS Solutions and I really appreciate the one-to-one advice and support within the team,” said Omar.

Tim Lloyd said that he was delighted to have Omar on board.

“He has settled in really well and we are all looking forward to helping him continue building his experience. He is a real asset to the team,” said Tim.

Cloud Construct celebrates a decade in business

Business & Technology Centre tenants, Cloud Construct – a web and software development agency is celebrating 10 years in business.

Cloud Construct was established in August 2012 as PBS Creative. The company rebranded last year to reflect its focus on cloud-based services.

The company is now actively recruiting a web developer to support its growing business and customer base.

Peter Barfield, founder of Cloud Construct, credits their survival and continued success to a steady and systematic approach to growth and delivering high levels of service.

He said: “It’s very pleasing to reach 10 years in business, especially as we still continue to work with some of our first clients, including Boatshed, the world’s largest boat brokerage organisation. We’ve seen them grow and flourish internationally with the help of our bespoke software and technology.

“I’ve always been very mindful to grow the company at a pace where there was an equal balance of staff to the business. I’ve seen many agencies come and go over the years. They’ve become really successful and done well, but then they’ve been unable to sustain the amount of new work required to keep their staff employed. I didn’t want that to happen in my business.”

Last year Cloud Construct was awarded Select Partner Status by Amazon Web Services (AWS). They went through rigorous training and approval systems and it means they can access AWS services and cutting-edge technologies to build bespoke, next-generation software for their customers.

Peter Barfield continued: “It’s an exciting time for Cloud Construct. Alongside our client work, we have lots of ideas for software products and services, so we’re looking for an experienced developer to join the team.

“We’re looking for someone who is a natural problem solver and has a level of commercial awareness i.e. they understand how software fits in within a business to help them to achieve their goals.”

Cloud Construct is now planning an event to celebrate its 10-year anniversary for clients and business connections.

Visit CloudConstruct.co.uk